"A fiery, heartbreaking, riveting memoir that follows one New Hampshire family over the course of three years, unspooling a story of gender identity, poverty, trans youth, and a child caught in the riptide of America’s culture wars.
Abi Maxwell grew up in rural New Hampshire, one of eight kids in a poor town abutting the wealthier lakeside village of Gilford.
As a young couple, Maxwell and her husband planned not to have kids, but when Maxwell became pregnant, she knew she wanted to raise her child near the mountains and lake of her youth. When her six-year-old asks to wear pink sneakers, asks to be a witch for Halloween, asks to wear a girls’ dance costume, Abi worries about how their small community will react. But when that child changes her name, grows her hair long, and announces that she is girl, a firestorm descends on the family.